Unappreciated Insights - The Fool on the Hill

It can be very lonely to be right. It is not enough to figure things out, because action so often requires the cooperation and acceptance of others who see the world differently.

The frustrated person with a creative insight or idea often concludes that the other has the quality of "resistance to change". A little thought experiment proves there is no such thing. Imagine the most "resistant" person you know. Imagine someone comes in and explains their income will double next year with no negative effects. That is a major change. Do you think there would be any resistance? Of course not.

People resist change they think is bad. That is their job. If there was a universal job description, it would be to resist change. If you are an accountant, your first job is to make sure that no one makes any changes that interfere with collecting and analyzing the financial data. If you are an engineer, your first job is to make sure no one makes a change that harms the customer.

First of all, lets save to another time the very obvious possibility that you are wrong, that there is some fact or factor that you did not know to include in your thinking. Too many creative people have a hard time considering this possibility.

For this discussion, lets assume that your idea has great merit.

The problem is that the creator has shifts of insight or perspective that make the new solution obvious, the result of weeks or months of hard work and thinking. That difference of perspective is what makes the idea evident, even obvious. Without that same process to shift perspective, the boss or client or colleague just thinks we are crazy. To expect them to make the same shift instantly seems a bit unfair. Once you realize that the advantages are not obvious to them you can begin finding ways to shift their perspective, then when you announce your idea, you are a genius!!